this has 100% been talked about before but younger members of the lgbt community (especially on tumblr) NEED to understand that “gay panic” doesn’t mean “oh no i’m a teen panicking because i might be gay” it means “literal legal defense used in cases where a person has murdered someone upon finding out they were gay”
the gay panic defense states that if someone finds out you are gay you do not need to have threatened them, spoken to them, or even know of their existence- they now have the right to murder you under self-defense laws bc you letting them find out you’re gay antagonized and “panicked” them.
Only a handful of states have outlawed this horrific legal tactic. Ten have conclusively banned it as of June 2020, and 12 states have put the topic on the table for debate.
Content Warning: The article mentions incidents of violence and murder against LGBTQ+ individuals, when it gives examples of high-profile cases where the gay/trans panic defense has been successful and unsuccessful. To go straight to the action steps, scroll to the bottom where you’ll find a list.
i’m so glad this post has been gaining traction and that people have been adding more information; the two overwhelming responses to this post have been “yeah, this refers to hate crimes and it’s not right to dilute that” and “oh shit, i never knew! i need to remember this!”
if you never knew the history of this phrase, it’s not a personal or moral failing. it’s just information that hadn’t gotten to you but is important to remember. follow the links. do your research. take action.
okay time for a rundown on the significance of pounamu/greenstone in māori culture, seeing as its less than a month until tourists can come back to aotearoa
pounamu is the name for jade, nephrite, or greenstone in te reo māori. its a stone which is mostly found in the arahura river, but also other places in te wai pounamu/the south island. this stone has an important significance to all māori, but especially ngāi tahu and other south island tribes. pounamu is the name given to all of this stone found in aotearoa, but any greenstone found outside of the country cannot be called pounamu. the stone is a connection to our land, our history, and our ancestors
pounamu is taonga, and is regularly carved into small shapes for necklaces. these necklaces can be bought throughout aotearoa, and make a huge profit annually. luckily, in 1997, all rights to pounamu were returned to ngāi tahu, meaning no one else can legally take the stone from rivers, carve it, or make a profit from it. many māori wear pounamu necklaces, but its not something that only māori can wear! many pākehā and tauiwi wear it as an acknowledgement to tangata whenua, to acknowledge the land
if youre visiting aotearoa, i absolutely encourage you to buy pounamu. there are, however a few key things to consider
1. you should never buy pounamu for yourself. you can buy it to gift to someone else, and you can wear it if you have been gifted it, but never buy taonga to wear yourself. this carries back to the traditional usages of pounamu taonga as a trading/gifting item. we would gift it to other hapū, or it was given to individuals within hapū or whānau.
2. make sure it is ngāi tahu pounamu. this is easy to check when purchasing it! ngāi tahu have put together a system in which every piece of pounamu that is carved or sold by ngāi tahu has a code which can be put into their website to trace the origins of the stone, and who carved it. if you are buying pounamu that doesnt have this code, it is either stolen, or more likely, it isnt pounamu at all and its jade that has been grown outside of aotearoa and imported to profit off our culture. the only time you will have authentic pounamu that does not have the traceable code is in the case of being gifted pounamu by a ngāi tahu iwi member who collected and carved the pounamu themselves
3.not all pounamu is nephrite! mine for example is bowenite, which we call tangiwai pounamu. our tūpuna didnt distinguish between these different types of rock, they are all considered pounamu and none is any less precious than any other
4. check the meaning of the shape your pounamu has been carved into. the last thing you want is to be purchasing something that means something you dont realise…
otherwise, if you have checked everything, please do buy pounamu for people! the profits go directly to tangata whenua, and its a beautiful and meaningful gift
when our borders open, come for a visit if you have the means, and do what you can to immerse yourself (respectfully) into our culture
I feel like I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and probably elaborate later but adoption is not a “solution” to abortion. Pregnant people are not incubators that exist for adoptive parents, babies forced to be alive should not be commodities to buy and sell. Private adoption agencies have lobbied for right wing anti-choice policies and politicians because they know they will profit off that that. You’ll hear “there’s an shortage of babies to adopt” because in America it’s completely normalized to sell children and if that leaves an icky taste in your mouth it’s because at the end of the day it’s simply true. And they price those children by race and gender, it’s wrong, but it is simply a fact.
LOW AND BEHOLD:
I feel like it should be said America is one of the only countries this is normalized. A lot of people from other countries would give us a horrified look because this sounds beyond the pale and dystopian. But for some reason we’re made to believe it’s normal. And that’s not to dunk on my fellow Americans as much as point out that we’re fed propaganda to believe this is normal when it is in fact a hold over by private adoption agencies from Georgia Tann stealing + profiting off of the human trafficking of children.
In Ireland, where abortion was strictly illegal from 1861 up until the referendum to repeal the 8th amendment in 2018, The Catholic church profited massively from the combination of massive social devastation they created re: pregnancy outside of marriage and the legal forcing of pregnancy through institutions called Mother and Baby Homes.
“Fallen women” would go here to be hidden away from public scrutiny, and they were forced into unpaid labor under brutal abuse in laundries or other labor that the church-run homes would take the profit from.
But relevant to the above point specifically, the homes also made money hand over fist via the human trafficking of babies to adoption rings, mainly in the US. Babies were either outright stolen from women, or those incarcerated in the homes were coerced into giving their children to the nuns through tactics of relentless shame, abuse, and ostracizing.
Forced pregnancy will always stand to profit someone, and US adoption rings and their religious fundamentalists partners already have a rich history of profiting off of stealing children — born from both forced and chosen pregnancies — from indigenous, incarcerated, poor and working class women of colour, and women and pregnant people at the sharp edge of imperialist and neocolonial exploitation.
